Feds: Widely Shared Titan Transcript Is Fake

Occupants of doomed submersible likely had no idea what was coming, investigator says
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 11, 2024 1:30 AM CDT
Feds: Widely Shared Titan Transcript Is Fake
FILE - This undated image provided by OceanGate Expeditions in June 2021 shows the company's Titan submersible.   (OceanGate Expeditions via AP, File)

After last year's Titan submersible disaster, a disturbing document went viral. It was, supposedly, a transcript of communications between the doomed sub and its support ship, starting out normally before becoming more alarming as those onboard the Titan supposedly started realizing something had gone wrong, then ending with the support ship Polar Prince making repeated attempts to raise the Titan after it stopped responding: "We're not receiving you. Update please." Newsweek published the transcript in full last year, and noted at the time that there was much skepticism over its authenticity. Now, the head of the team from the federal government that is probing the disaster tells the New York Times the transcript is indeed a fake.

"I'm confident it's a false transcript," Capt. Jason Neubauer, chairman of the Marine Board of Investigation, tells the newspaper. "It was made up," though it's not clear by whom. The transcript suggests those aboard the Titan tried to get back to the surface after a number of alarms went off, indicating a problem, but Neubauer says that after almost a year spent investigating the catastrophic implosion, his team found no evidence those aboard the submersible had any warning at all of what was coming. And at the depth the Titan was, an implosion would have instantaneously destroyed the sub's hull, leaving no time for the panicking that the transcript claims happened. See the Times for more. (More Titan submersible stories.)

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